Too hot to cook....

so we went out to eat 'ceviche' and drink a couple of cold beers.

Quaint little place with just enough breeze wafting through to make it tolerable. Why anybody would fill a nice little restaurant with plastic flowers though is beyond me. Not only are they ugly and obviously, to anyone who has ever seen a real flower, fake but they are always layered with dust.

The 'ceviche' was good and the beer cold so we pretended not to see the plastic flowers.


QUOTE OF THE DAY:

We’ve heard that a million monkeys at a keyboard could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the internet, we know this is not true.” - Robert Wilensky


MEXICO(as I see it):

The economical problems facing Mexico may not always have their roots in complex, international trade manipulations. It might be simpler than that.

My visiting sister-in-law wanted to take a ride to San Juan de Lagos so we obliged her. The cathedral there is a must for visiting Catholics because it houses, if that's the right word, yet another famous virgen. How these virgens multiply is a mystery to me. Is it by word of mouth promotion or cell division or what? But, that's another story I suppose.

As in all of these famous religious places the town makes its living from the thousands of faithful who come daily. Surrounding the cathedral, for block after block are stalls selling religious trinkets, shoe shops, jewellery shops, dress shops, hatters and
restaurants.

It seems pilgrims, after receiving a blessing from the Virgen are ready to do some shopping. My sister-in-law and her sister are among the best there are at this activity.

After tailing these two through dozens of shops my sister-in-law spots a pair of sandals she cannot possibly live without. She prances around the store with one of them on asking our opinions and, since we weren't paying, we thought the sandal was wonderful.

"I'll take them" she announced to the sales girl. "How much?"

The sales girls' eyes glazed over a bit and she whispered to the second teenaged saleperson. They both went behind the counter and began studying some papers.

My sister-in-law is from D.F. and is no chump. She smells difficulty immediately.

"How much are the sandals?"
"We can't find the price."
"Isn't it marked on one of the sandals?" The sister-in-law presses. The girls look.
"No."
"On the box?" The girls look.
"No."
"Neither of you girls know the price of these sandals? How is that possible?" Fires the sister-in-law, eyes widening a bit.
"It's that the store is new, only open a few days and the owner is not here."
"Then call the owner and ask the price of the sandals!" My sister-in-law shot back.
"We can't"
"Why not?"
"The phone hasn't been installed."

We stormed out of the shop sans sandals. Actually, it was a satisfying experience for me. This stuff always happens to me but I thought it was because I was a immigrant and just didn't understand how things work here. I felt better knowing that my sister-in-law from Mexico City, the New York of Mexico, couldn't overcome the Mexican business acumen either.

I'm no expert but, it would seem that, one of the first rules of economics ought to be that the employees know the prices of the merchandise they are selling. But, that's just me.


THE SERIAL: Her Viking

We left off here:


Along with the building, its furnishings, her clothes and a few pieces of jewelry the only other thing the Widow Mora had was Cee Cee, an ancient Indian woman, who came with the house when her husband bought it 25 years earlier.



When the Widow Mora thought of her husband as a brute it was not with the vision of a large, carnal beast, although he was vulgar, but more as a man without conscience, mean spirited and with poor values. He had been,in fact, a small man, almost frail in stature but in his own house he could be as tyrannical as any man twice his size.

He was a man who presented his opinions as facts. There was only one side to every subject and he would always inform his wife what that was. She was expected to rubber stamp anything he said and if she could not bring herself to do so he flew into a rage and called her stupid.

It was this image she carried of her deceased husband that had made her decide not to pursue the possibilities of another marriage. Actually, she had tried to maintain some sort of social life after her husband died. Like the whole world, the Widow Mora had allowed herself to dream that something perfect might happen. It had taken about two years for her to dispense with the obvious local pretenders: the ne'er-do-wells, the alcoholics and the good-family-no-money lot. By that time, the highway had changed direction and Topolomo was left to bleed to death. With no new people coming into the town it ended any possibility of the widow meeting someone of character.

But, now something different was happening and her mind began to race with resurrected hope. Each morning she watched as he came from the north, which was to the right of her house. She had an uninterrupted view of almost a kilometer and it was during his approach on this stretch of beach that the Widow Mora had to do most of her calculations about the stranger. If he were to pass her house, continuing south, he was soon out of sight as the shoreline curved around an outcropping of rocks. Those times, when the man decided to keep going, vexed her mightily.

When the stranger was walking along the open beach the Widow Mora was able to see that he had a head of thick white hair, which tossed in the sea breeze, a fleecy white beard and a lean, well tanned body. Although, from a distance at least, he appeared to be in solid physical condition the widow judged him to be in his mid-fifties. As he would come into her range of vision he paused every so often and stared at the sets of waves as they broke noisily one after the other.

'What was he doing?' the widow wondered. He seemed to have no interest in swimming, 'And a wise thing it was too.' she thought, because the surf along Topolomo's coast was particularly heavy. It was another reason tourism had always been spotty in this southern region of Mexico.

The Widow Mora liked it very much when the gringo paused directly below her house to study the waves. This afforded her the best vantage point. As he pondered the surf crashing in front of him the widow speculated what the stranger might look like in a white dinner jacket and a red bow tie. Since she had not seen him in anything except his swimming trunks, a tan pair of the boxer type, and two or three different T-shirts, she also wondered what style of street clothes he preferred. The Widow Mora surmised that he probably wore gabardine slacks, polo-shirts and leather loafers with no socks. She thought that sounded right for someone who appeared to be an athletic sort of man.

'Who knows though?' she thought; with the snowy white hair and beard he certainly would look distinguished in a navy blue, pinstripe suit. The widow smiled as she dressed the stranger.

continued...